Both China and America are courting Bangladesh because being next to the Bay of Bengal it can provide easy access to the Indian Ocean, which funnels much of the world trade. By controlling this sea lane, America can choke off China’s economy. Bangladesh can give China an alternative land route via Burma.
By B. Z. Khasru
The United States has stepped up pressure on Bangladesh to join its Indo-Pacific military pact to contain China, but it is using a false pretext that may rile up the Bengali nation that carries the bitter memory of America’s opposition to its birth.
Washington recently sanctioned Bangladesh’s elite police unit, the Rapid Action Battalion, citing “serious human rights abuses.” Six of its current and former officers have been accused of abductions, murders and torture. Benazir Ahmed, former RAB head who is now chief of Bangladesh Police, has also been barred from entering America.
Then came a new revelation that America wanted to know how Bangladesh has spent U.S. military aid. The hidden motive behind this is to potentially slap further sanctions if the funds have been improperly used.
This revelation deepens the suspicion that Washington is using the pretext of human rights abuses to push Bangladesh to become a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal anti-China military pact comprising of the United States, Japan, Australia and India.
Bangladesh has faced U.S. pressure at least since October 2020 when Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun visited Dhaka and formally invited the South Asian nation to join the group. Dhaka has refused so far because of threats from China, a significant source of investment capital for Bangladesh.
Both China and America are courting Bangladesh because being next to the Bay of Bengal it can provide easy access to the Indian Ocean, which funnels much of the world trade. By controlling this sea lane, America can choke off China’s economy. Bangladesh can give China an alternative land route via Burma.
Largely devoid of natural resources and born extremely poor in 1971 with a meager income of $90 per person, Bangladesh in recent years has earned kudos worldwide as an economic success story. Each Bengali is now making more than $2,000 a year on average, scoring better than its larger and more resourceful neighbors. Hoping to further improve its fortunes, Bangladesh is working on big plans that will require huge foreign capital.
China signed a $21 billion aid deal with Dhaka five years ago, and has granted Bangladesh virtually tariff-free access to its markets. China is Bangladesh’s second largest arms supplier, and helping build a big military base near the Bay of Bengal.
Announcing the sanctions in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10, Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed the RAB for more than 600 abductions in the past 12 years and a similar number of murders. The force, founded in 2004 in response to public outcry to control rapidly rising crime, handles internal security as well as criminal and government-directed investigations. In recent years, the government allegedly used it to wipe out political opponents.
Nonetheless, Washington is guilty of double standards. When President Ziaur Rahman railroaded the trials of hundreds of rebel soldiers in 1977 and secretly hanged an undisclosed number of them, America did not publicly chastise him, let alone impose sanctions. Only Jane Coon, then deputy assistant secretary of state, blocked his visit to the White House, ignoring Ambassador Ed Masters’ push.
Washington’s sanctions strategies often carry hidden agendas. When America imposed sanctions on the Soviet Union after it invaded Kabul, they were billed as part of a mission to rescue Afghanistan, but they were actually intended to warn Moscow not to march into Iran.
Applying the same tactic, Americans are giving Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina two messages: (1 ) punish the named officers, and (2) join the Quad. Hasina’s failure to comply, especially with the second demand, is likely to subject Bangladesh to more sanctions.
The U.S. steps may embarrass Hasina on world stage, but sanctions in general rarely achieve their stated goals. Often they do just the opposite — make the recipients more rigid. Hasina will certainly not put her police chief on trial, because such a step will open up a Pandora’s box, putting her administration and her political future in jeopardy. Even a dumb person knows that the RAB did not act arbitrarily without approval from the top.
To concede the U.S. demands will make Hasina look weak to her followers as well as adversaries. A weak leader is despised in Asia—and perhaps in other parts of the world, too— especially if one fails to stand up to big bullies.
This leaves the United States with the only hope that its secret strategy to coerce Hasina into the Quad will succeed. The prime minister is less than likely to bend over backwards to please Washington, simply because of her fear to look weak, if nothing else. Can she afford to be on the wrong side of both India — which is playing second fiddle to America— and the United States at the same time? Her records indicate she can.
Furthermore, the region has a history of resisting America’s diktat. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, refused to join the U.S.-led military pacts in the 1950s. Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan snubbed U.S. request to send soldiers to fight in Vietnam. Even Ziaur Rahman, who was America’s poodle, barked when Washington pressed him to support sanctions on Iran in 1979.
With its latest steps, America runs the risk of being branded as a nation genetically predisposed to harming the homeland of 165 million Bengalis. Many of them still vividly remember how President Richard Nixon aided their enemy, Pakistan, to pursue his secret ping pong diplomacy via Islamabad. There is still a lingering suspicion that America really does not wish Bangladesh well. Hasina believes deep down that Washington’s hidden agenda is to banish her into political oblivion.
Bangladesh’s foreign office is bitter. But Hasina, not known for making rash decisions, has been rather mum on the sanctions, and is unlikely to open her mouth any time soon, especially because her long-time chief patron, India, is now reported to be a co-conspirator in America’s mischief. To bring Bangladesh in line, the United States needs India on its side.
India is no more on the same page with Hasina. Dhaka-Delhi relations soured after India botched several trade deals, threatened to push back an alleged 40 million illegal Bengali migrants, and, above all, Indians chided Bangladesh for cozying up to China. India won’t take any direct action against Bangladesh, but will secretly endorse Washington’s dirty tricks.
With its “friendship to all, malice toward none” foreign policy, Bangladesh is between a rock and a hard place. While the Biden administration is pulling Dhaka to its side, China has vowed fire and fury if Bangladesh embraces Uncle Sam.
Since the 1950s, Beijing has refrained from squeezing Delhi too hard lest India jump into the U.S. orbit. Both America and India may find the Chinese tactic instructive to deal with Bangladesh. Instead of bullying, honor Dhaka’s neutrality and insist that China not be given advantage over America and India. Push her to the edge, Hasina will draw from her experience in successfully fending off U.S. pressures and rally the Bengalis around her, citing America’s chronic hostility and malafide toward the Bengali nation.
About the author:
B. Z. Khasru
B. Z. Khasru, a U.S.-based journalist, is author of “Bangladesh Liberation War, How India, U.S., China and the USSR Shaped the Outcome” and “The Bangladesh Military Coup and the CIA Link.”
His new book, “One Eleven Minus Two, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s War on Yunus and America,” will be published shortly by Rupa & Co., New Delhi.
Employees are entitled to receive information about their employment conditions. Which information does this concern? When and how does the employee have to receive this information?
By Jan Dop and Priscilla de Leede
Law prescribes which basic information the employer has to give the employee about the employment contract and in which way this must be done. Please note: The obligation to provide information also applies to employment contracts with bogus self-employed persons. Thus, you may find that even in the case of a contract for services, this information must be provided to the contractor.
Required information
Most obligations have been included in Book 7, Article 655 (1) of the Dutch Civil Code. According to this list, the employer needs to provide at least the following information:
Name and address of employer and employee.
The place or places where the employee performs his/her work.
The position of the employee or a job description.
The date on which the employment contract commences.
In a fixed-term agreement: the duration of the agreement.
The number of holidays or the way in which they are calculated.
The notice period or the way in which it is calculated.
The remuneration and the period of payment. In case of a piece wage:
The quantity the employee has to offer per day or week,
The price per unit, and
The time that is reasonably necessary for the performance of a unit.
Whether the employee will take part in a pension scheme.
If the employee is to work abroad for more than one month:
The duration of the work,
The accommodation,
If the employee falls under the Dutch social security legislation or a specification of the bodies responsible to administer this legislation,
The currency in which the wages will be paid,
The allowances to which the employee is entitled, and
The arrangement of the employee’s return.
Whether the employment contract falls under a collective labour agreement or another scheme. In case the Waadi Act is applicable, this must also be stated.
Whether there is an agency work employment contract or a payroll contract.
Whether the employment contract is for an indefinite time.
In addition to this list, other information must be provided. For example, under the Pension Act, the employee is entitled to information about the content of the pension scheme. Starting from 1 August 2022, a new European regulation will further expand the obligations of the employer.
In writing or electronically
The employer can provide the information in writing or electronically. The electronical provision of information is only allowed if the employee agrees to it. If points a-j, n and o have been included in the employment contract or the pay slip, the employer does not have to provide them separately again. This also applies to points f-i if they have been included in the collective agreement referred to in the employment contract.
Deadline for providing information
The employer has to provide this information within one month of the commencement of the work. If the employment contract has been concluded for less than a month, the information must be provided before the termination of the employment. If the employee will be working in a foreign country, the information from part k must be provided before the departure. Changes have to be communicated to the employee within one month of becoming effective.
If housekeeping staff is involved who work for an individual for less than four days per week, the employer only has to provide this information upon request.
Penalty on breach of obligation to provide information
There is no penalty for violation of the obligation to provide information. However, the employer is liable for damage the employee suffers because the employer did not comply with the obligation to provide information, for example, by providing incomplete or incorrect information. Here, you can consider, for example, the loss of holidays or a contractual penalty the employee must pay because paid childcare turns out to be unnecessary after all. Arrangements that the employer does not need to comply with parts of the obligation to provide information are void.
By H.E. Mr. Askar Zhumagaliyev, Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
For 30 years of Independence, Kazakhstan has established itself as the leading and stable economic power in Central Asia with a market economy and centuries-old traditions. But, unfortunately, the one-stage and clearly planned attack of terrorist groups against government agencies and civilians to undermine the basic functions of the state was a real shock for the whole country, which was not prepared for such a large-scale aggression. These days for the first time in history of independence, we have faced a very difficult and turbulent period that now is called “Almaty tragedy”.
When protesters took to the streets in western Kazakhstan to voice their demands regarding gas prices, the government immediately engaged in a dialogue with the demonstrators. Following discussions, gas prices were reduced and measures to regulate the gas price were introduced. The demands of the protesters were met.
The problem started with the fact that peaceful protests, unfortunately were hijacked by perpetrators and terrorist groups both domestic and foreign that created a big problem for the country. When the rioters attacked military and administrative facilities and seized the Almaty airport, it became evident that the country was dealing with a well-organized terrorist assault. In fact, a well-organized criminals resorted to militant tactics in 11 regions, they conducted attacks on administrative buildings, TV stations, military bases, police precincts & civil facilities. They killed numerous law enforcement and civilians. The authorities reached the conclusion that Kazakhstan was facing a coup attempt. In this respect, a state of emergency was declared in the country.
Objectively assessing the situation and following the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev approached the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). A small peacekeeping contingent with participation of all CSTO member-states from Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan has deployed in Almaty to protect strategic infrastructure. That permitted Kazakhstan law enforcement to concentrate on counterterrorism operation and fight against those perpetrators who were attacking. The CSTO peacekeeping contingent completed its mission and withdraw from Kazakhstan on January 19.
Unfortunately, there are human casualties, both among law enforcement officers and military personnel, as well as civilians. This is a huge tragedy for us, the relatives of the victims, and the entire Kazakh people.
At the same time, it should be underlined that Kazakhstan has not, did not and will not use armed force against peaceful protestors. Police and National Guard were protecting civilians and restoring the order confronting armed criminals and terrorists.
It should be noted that protesters in a democratic society do not engage in this level of violence, with this level of massive destruction and killings of law enforcement. As the tragedy of Almaty and other cities in Kazakhstan showed, it is the lack of observance of laws, permissiveness, anarchy that leads to the violation of human rights. For this purpose, it is the right of every government to secure the country and its people, taking all legal and administrative measures in accordance with international standards of democracy and respect for human rights.
Kazakhstan remains committed to its international obligations and universal principles of human rights and the rule of law. We will never deviate from the trajectory of further political modernization and will continue to support the right of citizens to peacefully protest.
It is important to emphasize the unity of the people of Kazakhstan at this difficult time. Citizens support the measures taken by President Tokayev to restore peace and have established communal groups to protect social facilities. Together we were able to overcome such a challenge as a united country.
On 20 January 2022 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the situation in Kazakhstan. As it was stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan this resolution is not only biased but also based on prejudiced opinions and assumptions.
There is an ongoing investigation into the tragic events by the Special Governmental Commission and we find it unacceptable that a document of this nature has been adopted before the publication of its findings. Therefore, we urge our esteemed partners to examine the situation objectively and await the results of the official investigation that will be openly shared with the international community in due time.
Moreover, an independent public commission consisting of lawyers specialized in criminal cases was established in Kazakhstan to investigate the January events. At the same time, the Government of Kazakhstan took all measures to ensure the rights of detainees and arrested persons. Close cooperation with human rights organizations has been established to prevent violations of detainees’ constitutional rights.
Without a doubt, this tragedy requires radical steps to change the system of state administration and the social sphere and to narrow the gap between different segments of our society. On January 11, President Tokayev announced plans for the implementation of a set of post-crisis measures for the renewal of society and the economy aimed at forming a fundamentally new paradigm for the development of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan’s economy is recovering after the pandemic. We are expecting economic growth of 3.7 per cent this year. President Tokayev stressed that all our citizens should reap the benefits of this growth. Kazakhstan will ensure openness of the national economy, sanctity of contracts, respect for intellectual property rights and relentlessly combat corruption.
New reforms aim to become the basis of a new Kazakhstan. Fair competition, transparency and predictability of state policy, taxing honesty and social responsibility are set to become the principal elements of the new economic policy.
At the same time the Government is taking all necessary measures to restore the confidence of domestic and foreign investors and trading partners in the economy of Kazakhstan.
A new Concept of Investment Policy will be developed to increase the attractiveness of the country considering the increased environmental, social, and corporate governance requirements, as well as the global energy and technological transition.
We will continue to develop a close co-operation with all friends and partners, including the Netherlands and the EU. Kazakhstan will maintain favorable conditions for foreign investment.
Kazakhstan will recover and emerge out of this crisis even stronger and more united.
By H.E. Mr. M Riaz Hamidullah, Ambassador of Bangladesh to the Netherlands with concurrent accreditation to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.
The Netherlands was one of the first OECD countries to recognize Bangladesh i.e. within two months’ of independence. This February, the two deltaic countries celebrate the golden jubilee of diplomatic ties that has evolved seamlessly.
While Bangladesh is a natural delta and the Netherlands is a regulated one, living and livelihood in both the densely populated lands significantly revolve around water. The two peoples celebrate a maritime heritage. In spite of diversity in the level of endowments and capacities, the two peoples champion resilience, adaptation and innovation in battling the limits of nature. Many Dutch having been to Bangladesh confide: it is the ceaseless endeavors of the Bangladeshis in converting the ‛challenges’ to ‛opportunities’ that attract them to Bangladesh. A Dutch soon associates him/herself with the ‛can do’ attitude, the uncanny aspiration-resilience-innovation of ordinary young women and men on the streets or villages in Bangladesh.
At the global stage, the two countries see eye-to-eye on many contemporary global issues e.g. SDGs, sustainability, responsible business, water, climate adaptation, women. Dhaka and Den Haag collaborate being driven by a shared understanding of ‛values’ in international domains e.g. peace and justice, crimes against humanity, humanitarianism. Bangladesh pro-actively engages with the Netherlands even on emerging discourses e.g. circular economy, net zero growth. These translate in an exceptional camaraderie between the Prime Ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Mark Rutte, on several platforms.
The Dutch engagements in Bangladesh actually commenced with robust development cooperation soon after independence in the 1970s. Beyond the Dutch governmental entities, over thirty Dutch NGOs and Foundations are active across a wider many of social and economic development. In the five decades since, the accent of the bilateral ties is largely on forging and deepening trade and economic partnerships. That is shepherded by growing number of Dutch and Bangladeshi entrepreneurs and enterprises shaping gainful partnerships, bilaterally or within global supply chains. Shifting from initial focus on building productive capacity in Bangladesh, today the collaboration spread over apparel manufacturing to FMCG, fintech, renewable energy, light engineering et al. With rapid urbanization and organized industrialization in Bangladesh, the Dutch business looks at newer many of collaboration to tap, for instance how to enhance water efficiency all across.
Ranked as the 43rd largest economy, Bangladesh economy is projected to emerge within leading 30, by year 2030. Consequently, demand for commodities, energy, services, technology and infrastructure in Bangladesh keeps rising. The Dutch entrepreneurs, innovators and SMEs consequently find opportunities to engage in mutually beneficial ways by employing ideas, innovation, knowledge and technology. Beyond conventional manufacturing landscape, newer areas and modes of collaboration are evident. Even ‘innovative finance’ is in attention where Dutch angel investors and impact investors are exploring opportunities in Bangladesh. 70+ Bangladeshi digital technology firms are now at work with their Dutch peers, for example.
The ‛Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100’ provides a key entry point for future collaboration. As much as it is to make Bangladesh delta resilient and climate-proof with Dutch expertise and experience in water works, a key focus is also to embark or transformation of Bangladesh agriculture. That is vindicated by several ‛Market Scans’ conducted recently by RVO on Bangladesh agriculture e.g. horticulture, aquaculture, dairy.
The ‛frontiers of possibilities’ is best illustrated by the 70,000 tulips that blossomed on Bangladesh soil this winter, thanks to a small farmer in vicinity of Dhaka. His tulips in ten colors flutter in open field, for the third year in a row. Delwar, the young farmer, left his Dutch tulip-bulb suppliers to disbelief. On a wider note: Delwar stands out to celebrate an uncanny friendship between the peoples of Bangladesh and the Netherlands. He also quietly underlines a unique story of cooperation and collaboration that continue to shape between the two delta.
Delwar should tell many that so many ‛improbable’ can be turned around. As millions of young Bangladeshi women and men aspire and strive to uplift their lives, the next decades promise so much of economic potential to be translated between Bangladesh and the Netherlands.
By H.E. Mr. Ruslanbek Davletov, Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Freedom of speech is essential for expressing the opinion of citizens, highlighting by media important public events, political and social problems, as well as fighting for the rights and freedoms of citizens.
Since 2016, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has pursued an active position to transform Uzbekistan’s policy almost in all spheres including the economy, civil society, state-building, foreign policy, and other spheres. In addition, there have been also positive changes in the freedom of speech, due to reforms carried out by the government in recent years. For example, the simplification of accreditation mechanism for foreign media, accreditation of the BBC, Voice of America, Fergana Agency and other information agencies, creation of press service systems in state bodies, to ensure transparency of their activities, unblocking certain “forbidden” web sites, creation of Agency of Information and Mass Communications under the Administration of the President and Public Foundation for Support and Development of National Mass Media and other reforms.
In the country, various, including political, events are actively covered by many media outlets (kun.uz, gazeta.uz, qalampir.uz, nuz.uz, etc.) and bloggers (Khushnudbek Khudoiberdiev, Umid Gafurov, Nikita Makarenko, Kirill Altman, etc.). Mass media and their right for speech is also actively supported by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Thus, on September 30, 2020 speaking at the International Congress Center, Shavkat Mirziyoyev noted that Uzbekistan is open today, and it is no longer possible to close the country as before. He also thanked the media and said that leaders who do not contact them have no future.
On February 2021, during a visit to Fergana region, the President held a dialogue with media representatives. Referring to the media, he said that they are his comrades-in-arms, and he relies on their help, seeing in them a force that fairly tells people about our achievements and shortcomings.
On June 2021, Shavkat Mirziyoyev congratulating media representatives said, that “the important tasks for us are improving the legal framework of the sphere and protecting the professional activities of journalists, strengthening the dialogue between the state and society, and establishing real public control”.
At the same time, it should be noted that in the age of informatization, the state pays special attention to the safety of the population, establishing a framework of responsibility for those who are in the information field.
For example, the media, users of telecommunications networks and the Internet will be obliged to prevent the use of their websites and pages to call for violence against citizens, riots, disobeying the eligible demands of government officials, as well as non-compliance or violation of the requirements of legislative acts. Such measures are preventive and will help to avoid threats to the safety of citizens, unauthorized riots, as well as cases of legal nihilism.
Due to pursuing a balanced democratic policy concerning freedom of expression in the last years, Uzbekistan improved its position in the Press Freedom Index by 9 points, having risen from 166 in 2015 to 157 in 2021. Nevertheless, Uzbekistan took low position compared to other post-soviet countries (for example, in 2021, Georgia took 60th place in the ranking, Armenia – 63th, Kyrgyzstan 79th, Ukraine 97th), and the situation with freedom of speech is described in the rating as “bad”.
One of the main reasons for this, as noted in the latest Report “Index of press freedom”, is the arrest of some bloggers and journalists.
In most cases, the state, imposing restrictions on freedom of speech, tries to protect citizens from information that causes harm to society and rights of citizens. For example, the dissemination of information containing calls for violence, extremism, and fundamentalism, slander and insult, creating panic among the population and others.
However, sometimes, despite the calls of the Head of State for dialogue between state organizations and representatives of the media, there are often cases when freedom of speech is unlawfully restrained by the authorities when media try to highlight their illegal actions or ensure transparency of their activities.
To avoid unfair restriction of freedom of speech, competitive state authorities and courts must take into account that restrictions on the right to freedom of speech must meet the conditions of the so-called “three-part test” arising from article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
According to the test, restrictions should:
be provided by law, which means, that the government must follow a written law that is clear and not ambiguous. Otherwise, people won’t know when and how they might be accused of doing something wrong.
be in pursuit of a legitimate aim, listed exhaustively as: respect of the rights or reputations of others, the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals;
be necessary and proportionate in a democratic society, i.e. if a less intrusive measure is capable of achieving the same purpose as a more restrictive one, the least restrictive measure must be applied.
Following this test will help government organizations to avoid unjustified and illegal arrests of persons covering various events and opinions.
To sum up, Uzbekistan is focused today on the building of the open and democratic society. The media, often referred as “watchdogs”, guards the rights of citizens, democracy, as well as play important role in the prevention of corruption and abuse of power by civil servants. Therefore, cooperation with media representatives, as well as ensuring freedom of speech should be one of the priority tasks of open government.
By StateMinister Katja Meier, Saxon State Minister of Justice, Democracy, European Affairs and Gender Equality
The European Union’s eastern enlargement in 2004 also signalled a paradigm shift for the Free State of Saxony. Saxony is now located in the middle of the European Union, which puts us in a position where we can serve as a bridge between the West and the East of Europe.
Therefore, we try to promote trans-European, cross-border and interregional cooperation wherever we can. As part of the Conference on the Future of Europe, we hosted an event together with five other European regions (Baden-Württemberg, Lower Silesia, Grand Est, Karlovy Vary, and Ústi), inviting people living in Europe’s border regions to discuss the future of the European Union. The participants drew on their own experiences to come up with various practical suggestions, including the foundation of a trinational broadcasting station and a European recycling system.
Copyright Daniel Meißner SMJusDEG
Dignitaries: State Minister Katja Meier and Mathias Weilandt, State Secretary for Justice and Europe, Saxon State Ministry of Justice, Democracy, European Affairs and Gender
Equality at the Conference of State Ministers in charge of European Affairs of the German Federal States (Konferenz der Europaministerinnen und -minister, -senatorinnen und –
senatoren der deutschen Länder- EMK) in Chemnitz, Germany, September 2021
Clearly, the border regions are vivid centres of European integration. The people there enjoy all the benefits of the EU citizenship on a daily basis. If we were to develop this further into a fully-blown European state citizenship, this could lead to more political and economic alliances within the EU, as the border regions and their inhabitants would grow closer together. To form long-term alliances of this kind, we must involve the people themselves in this process, and the Conference on the Future of Europe provides plenty of opportunities to do that.
As far as transnational cooperation is concerned, I am always amazed how far we have come in the last few years. Saxony, Poland, and the Czech Republic share strong economic and cultural ties. As we remain committed to strengthening these ties, Saxony has been running liaison offices in Wrocław and Prague for ten years. The cross-border cooperation is not yet on the same level as in West-Germany; French-German relations having developed over a much longer period of time. Nevertheless, we are catching up. Not only are we working on a concept that will deepen our relations with the Czech Republic, we also managed to reach a unanimous vote regarding German-Czech cooperation in the Conference of the Ministers for European Affairs of the Länder (EMK).
Copyright Agata Władyczka
Dignitaries: State Minister Katja Meier und Olga Tokarczuk (writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate) after a debate on Gender Equality and Feminism in Poland, July 2021.
As current Chair of this Conference, as Minister of Justice, Democracy, Europe and Gender Equality, and as a former citizen of the GDR who grew up in a repressive system, I am committed to the ideas of cosmopolitanism, democracy, and of close neighbourly ties. To me, this entails not just a deeply-felt respect for the individual member states of the EU, all of whom have their own and very distinct political history. It also means that we must defend the foundations of the European Union.
The European Union is seen primarily as an economic alliance, but ultimately, it is a community based on shared laws and values. These are the very foundations of the European integration, and if individual member states deviate from this shared basis, the foundation itself becomes fragile. Individual member states and various European institutions have recognised that it was a major oversight not to protect the EU’s core principles better against violations in the past. All over the world, the foundations of democracy, such as an independent justice system, freedom of the press, and the fight against corruption have come under attack.
Copyright Daniel Meißner SMJusDEG
Dignitaries: State Minister Katja Meier und Clément Beaune, Secretary of State for European Affairs of the French Foreign Ministry with their delegations in Paris, October 2021
As State Minister for Democracy and European Affairs but above all as a convinced European, I am committed to protecting and deepening the fundamental values of the European Union. Democracy, the rule of law, and friendly relations between the people are integral when it comes to shaping Europe’s future.
Created in 2009 at the instigation of the European Union (EU), the Eastern Partnership (EaP) has continued to evolve and change since then. This is a joint initiative that is part of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) currently involving 16 neighbors of the European Union: those of the Mediterranean basin, and those located to the East (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). This constant dialogue between the EU and these countries is mostly of an economic and political nature.
The motto of the EaP is #StrongerTogether. In this article, we will analyze the diplomatic dimension of this hashtag.
Picture by European Parliament.
First, it is very important to note that many of the EaP countries aspire to join the European Union. The creation of this partnership allows them to comply step by step with the expected set of values to perhaps one day join it. Moreover, setting up this initiative aims at achieving prosperity, security and stability in the region in question. To accomplish this, global policy objectives such as the SDGs of the United Nations and the Paris Agreement serve as a channel for dialogue between these different actors. Furthermore, the overall trade between all these EaP actors has grown by 22% in 10 years and four of the EaP countries have the EU as first trade partner! The European Union has also granted numerous financial packages to its Eastern partners in order to increase the quality of life and to support a fair and democratic society.
You understood it correctly: we can therefore compare this partnership to a large-scale diplomatic weapon allowing all the actors to dialogue peacefully and to take a stand on sensitive issues on our continent. One concrete example is the mutual recognition of COVID-19 digital certificates. Besides, it is on June 28, 2021 that Belarus decided to withdraw from this initiative after the recent political clashes. This shows the importance of the diplomatic stakes around this partnership that pushed Lukashenko to step back from his European neighbors. Even if the EU states it is ready to continue the dialogue with this country, this act removes any hope of Belarus becoming a member of the European Union any time soon.
During the Eastern Partnership Summit which took place in December 2021, the EU has made a public announcement on this subject: « The EU regrets the decision of the Belarusian authorities to suspend their participation in the EaP and looks forward to resuming cooperation as soon as the necessary conditions for a peaceful democratic transition are in place to build on a joint agenda based on common values and shared interests.
In the meantime, the EU continues to engage with and support Belarusian citizens, civil society and independent media, including through a comprehensive plan of economic support for a democratic Belarus of up to €3 billion.» 1
Eastern Partnership Summit, 15 December 2021.
Aside from that, a new agenda for the next five years was set up in 2020. The top ten targets are supporting 500,000 SMEs which are considered as competitive and innovative, promoting the rule of law and inviting officials to declare their financial possessions, encouraging smart and sustainable connectivity, setting up mobility programs for 70,000 young intellectuals (such as researchers, students, etc.), improving cyber security and tackling cyber-crime, finding alternatives to reduce climate impact by saving energy for 250,000 households, providing people with safe water services and monitoring air quality in several cities, vaccinating 850,000 health workers and improving medical equipment, achieving a more inclusive society where gender equality prevails by supporting more than thousand members of the civil society and independent media, and finally enabling 80% of households of the Eastern Partnership Region to have access to a good internet connection. 2
Source: European Commission.
However, the EU identifies significant challenges in the EaP that must be resolved before it can have full confidence in these countries, and before becoming even more closely associated with them.
The first concerns the independence of the judiciary. The other ones are the lack of gender equality as well as the independence of journalists and civil society.
In conclusion, creating a mechanism for governments to collaborate with civil society, journalists, and youth to achieve common goals while trading with this strategic region at the gateway to Asia allows the European Union to secure its back.
It is thus a question of a formidable diplomatic weapon both for the EU and for these six countries based on the idea of being #StrongerTogether.
While many of whose citizens aspire to join the EU one day, this partnership allows these countries to have a foot in the EU while remaining fully sovereign in all their competences.
About the author
Nicolas Vande Kerckhove completed his Bachelor’s degree in Literature, Culture, Linguistics and History of Germanic languages at the Université Saint-Louis, Brussels, and a Master’s degree in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. In June 2021, he obtained his Master’s degree from the College of Europe in Natolin (Poland), where he studied European Interdisciplinary Studies. During his studies, he taught ancient and modern languages. As a Young European Ambassador (YEA), he is currently collaborating with other YEAs on projects in order to develop long-lasting cooperation and to build strong ties between young people from the European Union and from the Eastern Partnership countries.
• European Commission, EaP, 20 Deliverables for 2020: Bringing tangible results for citizens, November 2 0 2 1 , h t t p s : / / e c . e u r o p a . e u / n e i g h b o u r h o o d – e n l a r g e m e n t / s y s t e m / f i l e s / 2021-11/112021_eap_deliverables_factsheet_2021_eng.pdf (accessed on January 20, 2022).
• European Commission, Eastern Partnership Summit launches new and ambitious agenda, December 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/news/eastern-partnership-summit-launches-new-and- ambitious-agenda-2021-12-16_en (accessed on January 20, 2022).
• European Commission, Empowering young people in the Eastern Partner Countries, December 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/system/files/2021-12/Youth-factsheet.pdf (accessed on January 20, 2022).
• European Commission, European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Eastern Partnership, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/european-neighbourhood-policy/eastern- partnership_en (accessed on January 20, 2022).
• European Commission, New EU-funded Eastern Partnership Trade Helpdesk launched, December 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/news/new-eu-funded-eastern-partnership-trade-helpdesk- launched-2021-12-16_en (accessed on January 20, 2022).
• European Commission, Statement by President von der Leyen at the joint press conference with President Michel following the Eastern Partnership Summit, December 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/ presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_21_6917 (accessed on January 20, 2022).
• European Council, Eastern Partnership, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eastern-partnership/ (accessed on January 25, 2022).
• European Council, Eastern Partnership Summit, 15 December 2021, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/ meetings/international-summit/2021/12/15/ (accessed on January 24, 2022).
• European Council, Remarks by President Charles Michel at the press conference after the 6th Eastern Partnership Summit, 15 December 2021, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/ 2021/12/15/intervention-du-president-charles-michel-lors-de-la-conference-de-presse-a-l-issue-du-sommet- du-partenariat-oriental/ (accessed on January 24, 2022).
• European Parliament, The Eastern Partnership, 2013, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/euronest/en/eastern- partnership/policy (accessed on January 24, 2022).
Americans performed three very different policies on the People’s Republic: From a total negation (and the Mao-time mutual annihilation assurances), to Nixon’s sudden cohabitation. Finally, a Copernican-turn: the US spotted no real ideological differences between them and the post-Deng China. This signalled a ‘new opening’: West imagined China’s coastal areas as its own industrial suburbia. Soon after, both countries easily agreed on interdependence (in this marriage of convenience): Americans pleased their corporate (machine and tech) sector and unrestrained its greed, while Chinese in return offered a cheap labour, no environmental considerations and submissiveness in imitation. Both spiced it by nearly religious approach to trade.
However, for each of the two this was far more than economy, it was a policy – Washington read it as interdependence for transformative containment and Beijing sow it as interdependence for a global penetration. In the meantime, Chinese acquired more sophisticated technology, and the American Big tech sophisticated itself in digital authoritarianism – ‘technological monoculture’ met the political one.
These days, many argue that our C-19 response is a planetary fiasco, whose size is yet to surface with its mounting disproportionate and enduring secondary effects, causing tremendous socio-economic, political and psychosomatic contractions and convulsions. But, worse than our response is our silence about it.
Still to be precise, the C-19 calamity brought nothing truly new to the already overheated Sino-American relations and to the increasing binarization of world affairs: It only amplified and accelerated what was present for quite some time – a rift between alienated power centres, each on its side of Pacific, and the rest.
No wonder that the work on the C-19 vaccine is more an arms race that it is a collaborative humanistics.
This text examines prehistory of that rift; and suggests possible outcomes past the current crisis. It also discusses location and locality (absence of it, too). This since, geography is a destiny only for those who see their own history as faith.
Origins of Future
Does our history only appear overheated – as rearly monocausal, while it is essentially calmly predetermined? Is it directional or conceivable, dialectic and eclectic or cyclical, and therefore cynical? Surely, our history warns (no matter if the Past is seen as a destination or resource). Does it also provide for a hope? Hence, what is in front of us: destiny or future?[1]
Theory loves to teach us that extensive debates on what kind of economic system is most conductive to human wellbeing is what consumed most of our civilizational vertical. However, our history has a different say: It seems that the manipulation of the global political economy (and usage of fear as the currency of control) – far more than the introduction of ideologies – is the dominant and arguably more durable way that human elites usually conspired to build or break civilizations, as planned projects. Somewhere down the process, it deceived us, becoming the self-entrapment. How?
* * * *
One of the biggest dilemmas of liberalism, ever since David Hume and Adam Smith, was an insight into reality: Whether the world is essentially Hobbesian or Kantian. As postulated, the main task of any liberal state is to enable and maintain wealth of its nation, which of course rests upon wealthy individuals inhabiting the particular state. That imperative brought about another dilemma: if wealthy individual, the state will rob you, but in absence of it, the pauperized masses will mob you.
The invisible hand of Smith’s followers have found the satisfactory answer – sovereign debt. That ‘invention’ meant: relatively strong central government of the state. Instead of popular control through the democratic checks-&-balance mechanism, such a state should be rather heavily indebted.
Debt – firstly to local merchants, than to foreigners – is a far more powerful deterrent, as it resides outside the popular check domain.
With such a mixed blessing, no empire can easily demonetize its legitimacy, and abandon its hierarchical but invisible and unconstitutional controls. This is how a debtor empire was born. A blessing or totalitarian curse? Let us briefly examine it.
The Soviet Union – much as (the pre-Deng’s) China itself – was far more of a classic continental military empire (overtly brutal; rigid, authoritative, anti-individual, apparent, secretive), while the US was more a financial-trading empire (covertly coercive; hierarchical, yet asocial, exploitive, pervasive, polarizing). On opposite sides of the globe and cognition, to each other they remained enigmatic, mysterious and incalculable: Bear of permafrost vs. Fish of the warm seas. Sparta vs. Athens. Rome vs. Phoenicia… However, common for both (as much as for China today) was a super-appetite for omnipresence. Along with the price to pay for it.
Consequently, the Soviets went bankrupt by mid 1980s – they cracked under its own weight, imperially overstretched. So did the Americans – the ‘white man burden’ fractured them already by the Vietnam war, with the Nixon shock only officializing it. However, the US imperium managed to survive and to outlive the Soviets. How?
The United States, with its financial capital (or an outfoxing illusion of it), evolved into a debtor empire through the Wall Street guaranties. Titanium-made Sputnik vs. gold mine of printed-paper… Nothing epitomizes this better than the words of the longest serving US Federal Reserve’s boss, Alan Greenspan, who famously quoted J.B. Connally to then French President Jacques Chirac: “True, the dollar is our currency, but your problem”. Hegemony vs. hegemoney.
House of Cards
Conventional economic theory teaches us that money is a universal equivalent to all goods. Historically, currencies were a space and time-related, to say locality-dependent. However, like no currency ever before, the US dollar became – past the WWII – the universal equivalent to all other moneys of the world. According to history of currencies, the core component of the non-precious metals’ money is a so-called promissory note – intangible belief that, by any given point in future, a particular shiny paper (self-styled as money) will be smoothly exchanged for real goods.
Thus, roughly speaking, money is nothing else but a civilizational construct about imagined/projected tomorrow – that the next day (which nobody has ever seen in the history of humankind, but everybody operates with) definitely comes (i), and that this tomorrow will certainly be a better day then our yesterday or even our today (ii).
This and similar types of collective constructs (horizontal and vertical) over our social contracts hold society together as much as its economy keeps it alive and evolving. Hence, it is money that powers economy, but our blind faith in constructed (imagined) tomorrows and its alleged certainty is what empowers money.
(Empire’s currency loses its status when other nations lose confidence in ability of that imperial power to remain solvent. For the pre-modern and modern history, it happened with 5 powers – two Iberian, Dutch, France and the UK – before the US dollar took the role of world reserve currency. Interestingly, each of the empires held it for roughly a century.
The US century is just about to expire, and there are already contesters, territorial and non-territorial, symmetric and asymmetric ones.
On offer are tangibles and intangibles: gold, cryptocurrencies, and biotronics/nano-chemoelectricals.) But, what does the US dollar promise when there is no gold cover attached to it ever since the time of Nixon shock of 1971?
Pentagon promises that the oceanic sea-lanes will remain opened (read: controlled by the US Navy), pathways unhindered, and that the most traded world’s commodity – oil, will be delivered. So, it is not a crude or its delivery what is a cover to the US dollar – it is a promise that oil of tomorrow will be deliverable. That is a real might of the US dollar, which in return finances Pentagon’s massive expenditures and shoulders its supremacy.
Admired and feared, Pentagon further fans our planetary belief in tomorrow’s deliverability – if we only keep our faith in dollar (and hydrocarbons’ energized economy), and so on and on in perpetuated circle of mutual reinforcements.[2]
These two pillars of the US might from the East coast (the US Treasury/Wall Street and Pentagon) together with the two pillars of the West coast – both financed and amplified by the US dollar, and spread through the open sea-routs (Silicone Valley and Hollywood), are an essence of the US posture. Country that hosts such a dream factory, as the US does Hollywood, is easy to romanticize – though other 3 pillars are to take and to coerce.
This very nature of power explains why the Americans have missed to take the mankind into completely other direction; towards the non-confrontational, decarbonized, de-monetized/de-financialized and de-psychologized, the self-realizing and green humankind. In short, to turn history into a moral success story. They had such a chance when, past the Gorbachev’s unconditional surrender of the Soviet bloc, and the Deng’s Copernicus-shift of China, the US – unconstrained as a lonely superpower – solely dictated terms of reference; our common destiny and direction/s to our future/s.
Winner is rarely a game-changer
Sadly enough, that was not the first missed opportunity for the US to soften and delay its forthcoming, imminent multidimensional imperial retreat. The very epilogue of the WWII meant a full security guaranty for the US: Geo-economically – 54% of anything manufactured in the world was carrying the Made in USA label, and geostrategically – the US had uninterruptedly enjoyed nearly a decade of the ‘nuclear monopoly’. Up to this very day, the US scores the biggest number of N-tests conducted, the largest stockpile of nuclear weaponry, and it represents the only power ever deploying this ‘ultimate weapon’ on other nation.
To complete the irony, Americans enjoy geographic advantage like no other empire before. Save the US, as Ikenberry notes: “…every major power in the world lives in a crowded geopolitical neighborhood where shifts in power routinely provoke counterbalancing”. Look the map, at Russia or China and their packed surroundings. The US is blessed with its insular position, by neighboring oceans. All that should harbor tranquility, peace and prosperity, foresightedness.
Why the lonely might, an empire by invitation did not evolve into empire of relaxation, a generator of harmony? Why does it hold (extra-judicially) captive more political prisoners on Cuban soil than the badmouthed Cuban regime has ever had? Why does it remain obsessed with armament for at home and abroad? Why existential anxieties for at home and security challenges for abroad? (Eg. 78% of all weaponry at disposal in the wider MENA theater is manufactured in the US, while domestically Americans – only for their civilian purpose – have 1,2 small arms pieces per capita.)
Why the fall of Berlin Wall 30 years ago marked a beginning of decades of stagnant or failing incomes in the US (and elsewhere in the OECD world) coupled with alarming inequalities. What are we talking about here; the inadequate intensity of our tireless confrontational push or about the false course of our civilizational direction?
Indeed, no successful and enduring empire does merely rely on coercion, be it abroad or at home. The grand design of every empire in past rested on a skillful calibration between obedience and initiative – at home, and between bandwagoning and engagement – abroad. (Thus, the main battle is traditionally between the television and the refrigerator.) In XXI century, one wins when one convinces, not when one coerces. Hence, if unable to escape its inner logics and deeply rooted appeal of confrontational nostalgia, the prevailing archrival is only a winner, rarely a game-changer.
How did we miss to notice it before? Simply, economy –right after history– is the ideologically most ‘colored’ scientific discipline of all. (Our ‘mainstream’ narrative is thus full of questionable counterfactuals.)
To sum up; After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans accelerated expansion while waiting for (real or imagined) adversaries to further decline, ‘liberalize’ and bandwagon behind the US. One of the instruments was to aggressively push for a greater economic integration between regional and distant states, which – as we see now, passed the ‘End-of-History’ euphoria of 1990s – brought about (irreversible) socio-political disintegration within each of these states.
A Country or a Cause, Both or None?
Expansion is the path to security dictatum, of the post-Cold War socio-political and (hyper-liberal) economic mantra, only exacerbated the problems afflicting the Pax Americana, which acidified global stewardship; hence oceans, populations and the relations to the unbearable levels. That is why and that is how the capability of the US to maintain its order started to erode faster than the capacity of its opponents to challenge it. A classical imperial self-entrapment (by the so-called bicycle theory: keep pedalling same way or topple over).
Clearly, the US post-Cold War preponderance is now challenged in virtually every domain: America can no longer operate unrestrained in the traditional spheres of land, sea and air, not in newer ones like the (near and deeper) outer space and cyberspace. The repeated failure to notice and recalibrate such an imperial (over-)emasculation and consequent retreat brought the painful hangovers to Washington, the most noticeably, by the last two presidential elections.[3]
Inability to manage the rising costs of sustaining the imperial order only increased the domestic popular revolt and political pressure to abandon its ‘mission’ altogether. In that light the recent Saigon II – withdrawal from Afghanistan, too. The pullout was not a miscalculation or ill-made move but a long overdue shift to realism in American foreign policy.[4] Perfectly hitting the target to miss everything else …
In short, past the Soviet collapse Americans intervened too much abroad, regulated too little at home, and delivered less than ever – both at home and abroad. Such model attracts none.[5] No wonder that today all around the globe many do question if the States would be appealing ever again. Domestically, growing number of people perceive foreign policy mostly as an expensive destruction; divinized trade and immigration as destroyers of jobs and communities. Its political system is unable to decouple and deconcentrate wealth and power which suffocates the very social fabrics.[6]
Hence, Americans are not fixing the world anymore. They are only managing its decline. Look at their footprint in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Georgia, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or Yemen (GCC, Israel, Poland, Baltics, Taiwan soon too) – to mention but a few. Violence as a source of social cohesion is dying out. This explains why Americans nowadays nearly obsessively turn to promise of technology. Still, what the US plans to do becomes overshadowed by what others are already doing.
* * * *
When the Soviets lost their own indigenous ideological matrix and maverick confrontational stance,[7] and when the US dominated West missed to triumph although winning the Cold War, how to expect from the imitator to score the lasting moral or even a temporary economic victory?
American strategy to westernize [xihva] and split up [fenhva] China failed short there, but worked well for Yugoslavia and Soviet Union – weakening and delegitimizing central government by antagonizing nationalities, and demonizing party and army. Hence, a Copernican-turn: While offshore balancing Asian continent, the US ‘spotted’ no real ideological differences between them and the post-Deng China.
This signalled a ‘new opening’ – China’s coastal areas to become West’s industrial suburbia. Soon after, both countries easily agreed on interdependence:[9] Americans pleased their corporate (machine and tech) sector and unrestrained its greed, while Chinese in return offered a cheap labour, no environmental considerations and submissiveness in imitation. However, for both it was far more than economy lubricated by sanctified free trade, it was a policy – Washington read it as interdependence for transformative containment and Beijing sow it as interdependence for (global) penetration. American were left in a growing illusion that the Sino growth is on terms defined by them, and Chinese – on their side – grew confident that these terms of economic growth are only accepted by them.
The so-called Financial crisis 2008/09 (or better to say the peak time of Casino economy) undermined positions of the largest consumer of Chinese goods (US), and simultaneously boosted confidence of the biggest manufacturer of American products (PRC). Consequently, soon after; by 2012, Beijing got the first out-of-Deng’s-line leadership. (One of the famous dicatums of this Bismarck of Asia was ‘hide the capabilities, bide your time’ – a pure Bismarckian wisdom to deter any domestic imperialism in hurry.)
However, in the process of past few decades, Chinese acquired more sophisticated technology, and the American Big tech sophisticated itself in digital authoritarianism.
But, as America suddenly returns home, the honeymoon seems over now. Although heavily criticising Trump in past years, the Biden administration – along with the leading Democrat’s foreign policy intellectuals, is more of the Trumpistic continuity than of a departure from it. It especially refers to the Sino-American relations.
Why does it come now? Washington is not any more able to afford treating China as just another trading partner. Also, the US is not well situated to capitalize on Beijing’s eventual belligerence – be it compliance or containment especially with Russia closer to China than it was ever before.[10]
The typical line of western neo-narrative goes as: ‘The CCP exploited the openness of liberal societies and particularly its freedom of speech as to plunder, penetrate and divert’. And; ‘Beijing has to bear the reputational costs of its exploitative practices’.
Accelerating collision course already leads to the subsequent calls for a strategic decupling (at best, gradual disengagements) of the two world’s largest economies and of those in their orbits. Besides marking the end of global capitalism which exploded since the fall of Berlin Wall, this may finally trigger a global realignment. The rest of the world would end up – willingly or not – in the rival (trade) blocks. It would not be a return to 1950s and 1960s, but to the pre-WWI constellations.
Epilog is plain to see: Neither more confrontation and more carbons nor more weaponized trade and traded weapons will save our day. It failed in our past; it will fail again any given day.
Entrapment in Imitation
Interestingly, China opposed the I World, left the II in rift, and ever since Bandung of 1955 it neither won over nor (truly) joined the III Way. Today, many see it as a main contestant, a leader from the global South. But, where is a lasting success?
There is a near consensus among the economists that China owes its economic success to three fundamental factors. Firstly, it is that the People’s Republic embraced an imitative economic policy (much like Japan, Singapore, Taiwan or ROK did before, or VietNam does now) through Deng-proclaimed opening aided by the tiny middle class of political police and the national army of working class. Second goes to a modest domestic consumption, and German-like thick home savings (steered by the Neo-Mandarin cast of Communist apparatchiks in higher echelons of Beijing ruling court).
Finally, as the third factor that the economists attribute to Chinese miracle, is a low production costs of Sino nation – mostly on expenses of its aging demography, and on expenses of its own labor force and country’s environment.[11]
In short, its growth was neither green, nor inclusive, nor sustainable. Additionally, many would say – while quantifying the negative externalities of Chinese authorita-rianism – that Beijing mixes up its nearly obsessive social control, environmental negligence and its dismal human and minority rights with the right to development.
Therefore, many observers would agree that the so-called China’s miracle is a textbook example of a highly extractive state that generates enormous hidden costs of its development, those being social, environmental and health ones as much as expanding and lasting. And indeed, energy-intensive exports (especially carbon footprint) from China as well as its highly polluting industrial practices (overall ecological footprint) were introduced to and then for a long while tolerated in People’s Republic by the West.
Further on, China accepted a principled relation with the US (Russia, too), but insists on transactional one with its neighbors and BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) clients. This reduces the choice (offered by the two protagonists) on selection between the colonial democracy and authoritarian paternalism.
None of the above has an international appeal, nor it holds promise to an attainable future. Therefore, no wonder that the Imitative power fights – for at home and abroad – a defensive ideological battle and politics of cultural reaction. Such a reactive status quo has no intellectual appeal to attract and inspire beyond its borders.[12]
So, if for China the XIX was a “century of humiliation”, XX “century of emancipation”, should it be that the XXI gets labeled as a “century of imitation”?
(The BRI is what the most attribute as an instrument of the Chinese planetary posture. Chinese leaders promised massive infrastructure projects all around by burning trillions of dollars. Still, numbers are more moderate. As the 2019 The II BRI Summit has shown – and the BRI Summits of November 2020 and of 2021 confirmed, so far, Chinese companies had invested USD 90 billion worldwide. Seems, neither People’s Republic is as rich as many (wish to) think nor it will be able to finance its promised projects without seeking for a global private capital. Such a capital –if ever – will not flow without conditionalities. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS or ‘New Development’ – Bank have some $150 billion at hand, and the Silk Road Infrastructure Fund (SRIF) has up to $40 billion. Chinese state and semi-private companies can access – according to the OECD estimates – just another $600 billion (much of it tight) from the home, state-controlled financial sector. That means that China runs short on the BRI deliveries worldwide. Ergo, either bad news to the (BRI) world or the conditionalities’ constrained China.)
How to behave in the world in which economy is made to service trade (as it is defined by the Sino-American high priests of globalization), while (preservation of domestic jobs and) trade increasingly constitutes a significant part of the big power’s national security strategy? And, how to define (and measure) the existential threat: by inferiority of ideological narrative – like during the Cold War; or by a size of a lagging gap in total manufacturing output – like in the Cold War aftermath. Or something third? Perhaps a return to an inclusive growth.
If our civilizational course is still the same – the self-realization of mankind; than the deglobalization would be a final price to pay for re-humanization of labor and overall planetary greening. Are we there yet?
Promise of the Schumann Resonance
Earlier in this text, we already elaborated on imperial fictions and frictions: Empires and superpowers create their own realities, as they are not bound to ‘situation on ground’. For them, the main question is never what they can but what they want in international conduct. However, the (illiberal) bipartisan democracy or one-party autocracy is a false dilemma, both of nearly the same dead end.
Currently, Party slogans call for China to “take center stage” on the world stage and architecture “a community of common destiny for mankind”. But despite heated rhetoric, there is no intellectual appeal in a growth without well-being, education that does not translate into fair opportunity, lives without dignity, liberalization without personal freedom, achievement without opinionisation.
Greening international relations along with a greening of socio-economic fabrics (including the shift to blue and white, sea and wind, energy) – geopolitical and environmental understanding, de-acidification and relaxation is that missing, third, way for tomorrow.
(Judging the countries’ PEM /Primary Energy Mix/ and the manufacturing footprint, the American e-cars are actually run on the tar sands and fracked oil/gas, while Chinese electric vehicles are powered by coal.)
This necessitates both at once: less confrontation over the art-of-day technology and their de-monopolized redistribution as well as the resolute work on the so-called Tesla-ian implosive/fusion-holistic systems. That would include the free-transfer non-Hertzian energy technologies (able to avoid life in an electromagnetic, technologically generated soup of unbearable radiation toxicity, actually able to de-toxicate our troposphere from dangerous fields, waves and frequencies emittance – drawing us closer to a harmony of Schumann resonance); carbon-sequestration; antigravity and self-navigational solutions; bioinformatics and nanorobotics. Surely, with the bioinformatics and nanorobotics being free from any usage for eugenics’ ends (including the vaccination for microchipping purpose).
In short, more of initiative than of obedience (including more public control over data hoovering). More effort to excellence (creation) than a struggle for preeminence (partition). Leader of the world needs to offer more than just money and intimidation.
‘Do like your neighbor’ is a Biblical-sounding economic prophecy that the circles close to the IMF love to tirelessly repeat. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a formidable national economic prosperity, if the good neighborly relations are not built and maintained.[13] Clearly, no global leader has ever in history emerged from a shaky and distrustful neighborhood, or by offering a little bit more of the same in lieu of an innovative technological advancement.
(Eg. many see Chinese 5G – besides the hazardous electrosmog of IoT that this technology emits on Earth’s biota – as an illiberal innovation, which may end up servicing authoritarianism, anywhere.[14] And indeed, the AI deep learning inspired by biological neurons (neural science) including its three methods: supervised, unsupervised and reinforced learning can end up by being used for the diffusion of digital authoritarianism, predictive policing and manufactured social governance based on the bonus-malus behavioral social credits.[15])
Ergo, it all starts from within, from at home; socio-economically and environmentally. Without support from a home base (including that of Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet), there is no game changer. China’s home is Asia. Its size and its centrality along with its impressive output is constraining it enough.
Conclusively, it is not only a new, non-imitative, turn of socioeconomics and technology what is needed. Without truly and sincerely embracing mechanisms such as the NAM, ASEAN and SAARC (eventually even the OSCE) and the main champions of multilateralism in Asia, those being India Indonesia and Japan first of all, China has no future of what is planetary awaited – the third force, a game-changer, discursive power, lasting visionary and trusted global leader.[16]
If there was ever in history a lasting triumph, this is over by now. In the multipolar world of XXI century dominated by multifaceted challenges and multidimensional rivalries, there is no conventional victory. Revolution or restauration?
Post Scriptum:
To varying degrees, but all throughout a premodern and modern history, nearly every world’s major foreign policy originator was dependent (and still depends) on what happens in, and to, Russia. So, neither a structure, nor content or overall direction of world affairs for the past 300 years has been done without Russia. It is not only a size, but also a centrality of Russia that matters. That is important as much (if not even more), as it is an omnipresence of the US or a hyperproduction of the PR China. Ergo, that is an uninterrupted flow of manufactured goods to the whole world, it is a balancing of the oversized and centrally positioned one, and it is the ability to controllably corrode the way in and insert itself of the peripheral one. The oscillatory interplay of these three is what characterizes our days.
Therefore, reducing the world affairs to the constellation of only two super-players – China and the US is inadequate – to say least. It is usually done while superficially measuring Russia’s overall standing by merely checking its current GDP, and comparing its volume and PPP, and finding it e.g. equal to one of Italy. Through such ‘quick-fix’, Russia is automatically downgraded to a second-rank power status. This practice is as dangerous as it is highly misleading. Still, that ill-conceived argument is one of the most favored narratives which authors in the West are tirelessly peddling.
What many analysts miss to understand, is in fact plain to see throughout the entire history of Russia: For such a big country the only way to survive – irrespectively from its relative weaknesses by many ‘economic’ parameters – is to always make an extra effort and remain great power (including colossal military expenditures).
To this end, let us quickly contrast the above narrative with some key facts: Russia holds the key positions in the UN and its Agencies as one of its founding members (including the Security Council veto right as one of the P5); it has a highly skilled and mobilized population; its society has deeply rooted sense of a special historic mission (that notion is there for already several centuries – among its intellectuals and enhanced elites, probably well before the US has even appeared as a political entity in the first place). Additionally and tellingly, Moscow possesses the world’s largest gold reserves (on surface and underground; in mines and its treasury bars); for decades, it masters its own GPS system and the most credible outer space delivery systems (including the only remaining working connection with the ISS), and has an elaborate turn-key-ready alternative internet, too.
Finally, as the US Council of Foreign Relations’ Thomas Graham fairly admits: “with the exception of China, no country affects more issues of strategic and economic importance to the US than Russia. And no other country, it must be said, is capable of destroying the US in 30 minutes.”
I first met her on a little terrace, near the Vatican doors, in Rome, in a lovely summer day. I still remember that I was instantly struck by her beauty and I also noticed her necklace, which perfectly complimented her outfit and tanned skin.
Later on, I discovered her passion for jewelry, which she is now transforming into business.
Arpi Arakelyan was born in Armenia, is a linguist and journalist by training and worked in a state sector for several years, until she had the encounter of her life.
’I met my husband at a friend’s place, and we started to secretly examine each other right away, during that evening, pretending as if we were not interested in each other at all…He later became the man who really changed my life’.
She admits that the beginning of her diplomatic life was a bit difficult, it meant giving up many things and it brought changes to her life.
She tells me: ‘First I “lost” my job and I realized that from that moment on, there will be no stability in my life, in this regard. It was very difficult to prepare myself psychologically. Anyway, I started a totally new life with my beloved husband. However, this drastic change almost coincided with another great change, the birth of my daughter, which I’d say, was an irreplaceable motivation for me.’
Arpi Arakelyan
And from there, the series of Foreign Service missions began, known to all of us, who live a diplomatic life. She says that, no matter where she will be in a few years, most important is to be together with her family.
‘It was in 2015 when I first moved to Lithuania, where my husband was posted as a diplomat. Lithuania is my ‘’first country and first love’’, also because my baby girl was born there. The second posting is now, in beautiful Italy.’
And she continues telling me that moving to Italy, being surrounded by all that beauty, offered her the inspiration to start this new adventure in life, that of creation and art…
‘’Vivien Wearing’’ by Arpi Arakelyan
‘I have always loved painting and design. Those were my long time hobbies. I was circulating something in my mind for a long time about what I should do with my passions and my spare time. Then, all of a sudden, the idea of ‘’Vivien Wearing’’ arose. It was unexpected, but in the meantime, it was close to my heart, as I am a jewelry lover. Thus the idea has been developed quite quickly afterwards.
I would really like “Vivien Wearing” to be a nice example to my daughter and maybe to others, too, show them the possibility of starting anything and anytime from zero.’
She designs colorful and feminine necklaces, all from natural stones and materials.
Her eyes sparkle like her precious beads, when she talks about her new found passion.
‘I plan to continue creating, non-stop’, she says candidly. ‘When women feel themselves more feminine and beautiful while wearing my creations, that is when I consider my plan fulfilled. It’s my goal.’
I truly admire her passion and I like to see motivated young women who try to reinvent themselves and to prove that there is always more behind the diplomatic titles… we are not just diplomatic spouses.
She says that ‘diplomatic life can be difficult, because when you live in a foreign country, the sense of responsibility multiplies. You also never stop adapting, it’s an endless process.The most common perception of an easy-going life is thoroughly wrong.’
Arpi Arakelyan
But it seems to me that, although she is very young and has a whole life of experiences and discoveries in front of her, she has already learned, with wit and wisdom, many of the secrets of a fulfilled diplomatic life abroad and found her true calling in art.
‘Create continuously and find time for goodness!’ she says… indeed, my dear Arpi, let’s all try to do that!
By State Minister Dr. Florian Herrmann, Head of Bavarian State Chancellery and Minister of State for Federal and Media Affairs
The Bavarian State Government is firmly committed to the transatlantic partnership and to NATO. We nuture this friendship quite deliberately. Our close contact with Consul General Timothy Liston, working relations with the Embassy in Berlin and personal meetings with members of the U.S. Congress in Munich last year reaffirmed our mutual trust. The U.S. has been Germany’s most loyal ally for more than 65 years. To this day, American soldiers, both men and women, ensure peace and security in our country and in Europe.
We in Bavaria take great pride in being the largest region of deployment of U.S. land forces in Europe, with more than 14,000 soldiers and about 37,400 U.S. civilians. It is here where many soldiers, male or female, have found their second home or even the love of their lives. That is also why ties across the Atlantic are very strong. Only last October Dr. Markus Söder, our Minister President, awarded the campaign streamer to U.S. Army Europe: the highest honour the Free State can accord to a military organisation. Valuing our staunch partnership and decade-long friendship with the U.S. in the presence of U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth was a deliberate signal from Bavaria in this troubled time.
Senior Leaders Day 2021: Dr. Florian Herrmann & General Christopher G. Cavoli, Commanding General United States Army Europe-Africa
The strained security situation in Eastern Europe alone shows how important American engagement is for us. We observe fighting in eastern Ukraine, an increase in troop movement on NATO’s eastern flank, hybrid warfare and cyberattacks. This is the first time since the end of the Cold War that deterrence in Europe has become necessary again in order to maintain peace and freedom. All this we observe in Europe with mounting concern.
We therefore appreciate all the more that U.S. President Biden has signaled a clear commitment to Europe as an ally and has reinforced the international obligations of the U.S. – NATO, WHO and the Paris climate agreement. The signals of détente in transatlantic trade policy are also of importance.
Looking beyond the boundaries of Europe, we must all be clear that the West is faced with a variety of global challenges, which we have to overcome by joint endeavor if we want to maintain our model of liberal society, our common values. It seems to me that in this context our alliance with the U.S. is somewhat underrated. For the U.S. is and will always be our key partner for solving the challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, terrorism and systemic competition with rising China. The U.S. are the key partner we share common values with.
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USA trip by State Minister Dr. Florian Herrmann from 16.6 thru 20.6.2019 – Talk at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. on 18.6.2019
The trajectory of U.S. foreign-policy for the decades to come has become quite clear – an increasing focus on the Indo-Pacific region and at the same time continued cooperation in the transatlantic area, always with an eye on the systemic competition with China. In this respect the U.S. is expecting Germany and Europe to take a clearer stance in future. Therefore the U.S. is right to demand from Europe to take on greater responsibility for the defense of our continent and for providing for our own security. We need greater engagement of the EU in foreign and security policy.
The longstanding euro-atlantic partnership needs prove that it is capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. To this end it also has to find new answers. We in Bavaria will do everything we can to make that happen. We are proud to be the home of the world’s largest and most important conference on foreign and security policy, the Security Conference MSC, which has been held in Munich each year since 1963 and now is scheduled for February 2022.
Round table in the presence of US Consul General Timothy Liston
The MSC plays a major role in promoting international dialogue, which is also true of the G7 Summit, taking place for the second time in Elmau this year. We are very much looking forward to welcoming the world to Bavaria and will seize every opportunity to live up to our responsibility for the transatlantic we alliance and a stable international order. We in Bavaria embrace our joint international responsibility, our friendship with the U.S. and our responsibilities within NATO. There is no alternative.
